From Newsgroup: sci.anthropology.paleo
https://phys.org/news/2025-08-stone-tools-unearthed-kenya-reveal.html
In southwestern Kenya more than 2.6 million years
ago, ancient humans wielded an array of stone
toolsrCoknown collectively as the Oldowan toolkitrCoto
pound plant material and carve up large prey such
as hippopotamuses.
These durable and versatile tools were crafted
from special stone materials collected up to eight
miles away, according to new research led by
scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of
Natural History, Cleveland Museum of Natural
History and Queens College.
Their findings, published in the journal Science
Advances, push back the earliest known evidence of
ancient humans transporting resources over long
distances by some 600,000 years.
"People often focus on the tools themselves, but
the real innovation of the Oldowan may actually be
the transport of resources from one place to
another," said Rick Potts, the senior author of
the study and the National Museum of Natural
History's Peter Buck Chair of Human Origins.
"The knowledge and intent to bring stone material
to rich food sources was apparently an integral
part of toolmaking behavior at the outset of the
Oldowan."
...
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adu5838
Selective use of distant stone resources by the
earliest Oldowan toolmakers
Abstract
The adaptive shift that favored stone toolrCoassisted behavior in hominins began by 3.3 million years ago. However, evidence from early
archaeological sites indicates relatively short-distance stone transport dynamics similar to behaviors observed in nonhuman primates. Here we
report selective raw material transport over longer distances than
expected at least 2.6 million years ago. Hominins at Nyayanga, Kenya, manufactured Oldowan tools primarily from diverse nonlocal stones,
pushing back the date for expanded raw material transport by over half a million years. Nonlocal cobbles were transported up to 13 kilometers for on-site reduction, resulting in assemblage patterns inconsistent with accumulations formed by repeated short-distance transport events. These findings demonstrate that early toolmakers moved stones over substantial distances, possibly in anticipation of food processing needs,
representing the earliest archaeologically visible signal for the incorporation of lithic technology into landscape-scale foraging
repertoires.
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